


holy hands

by allgrift



Series: art-music-poetry- it's all grift. [1]
Category: BioShock
Genre: M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Rapture (Bioshock)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-06
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 02:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4943230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allgrift/pseuds/allgrift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Son- what did you say?" His father's eyebrows had furrowed gravely. To the onlooker, they might have merely looked stern, but to Hector, they held a different meaning. I'm going to give you one chance to take that back, was what they meant.</p><p>"Yeah, his eyes are pretty, Papi. Problem with that?"</p><p>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p>Years before Hector would be invited to Rapture, he had a life- and a family, if you could call it that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	holy hands

Pressing his cheek into the cold pane of the window, Hector felt his cheek go numb at the constant ricocheting pace of the passenger car in which he rode. The lights in the houses that they passed were darkened, and he felt very cold, and empty, as if he too was a house with nothing inside. He crossed his arms inside the too big coat he wore, and tried to think of something good.

“His verdict, dismissed!” his father’s jovial voice filtered in between his memories, jarring him more than the motion of the train. “That scheming puta of a nurse probably provoked my boy, anyway.”

His older brother Fabian’s smirk, superimposed over the black and grey of newsprint. PROMISING SURGEON FACES MURDER CHARGES, ran the headline. Below, a demure class photo of the nurse who’d worked alongside him. She’d been younger, quiet voice, smooth dark hair. Hector had met her once: she’d offered him some water, and he’d said “no thank you.” She’d been found floating in Newark Bay, the dark shapes of fingers around her slim throat.  
Below, in smaller font: ALL CHARGES DROPPED.

Fabian had been let off. Thank god. Thank the angels. Thank his father’s excellent team of lawyers.

He thought of Fabian’s hands, solid and too strong, and the supercilious smile that his brother always wore permanently fixed, like a canker sore, on his lips. Fabian had always been a weed of a man, putting on a show of weakness, but his hands were strong enough to leave marks.  
His mind stuttered for a moment, tripped over itself, like his feet when he tried to dance too fast. Something wasn’t right about that mental image, though he couldn’t yet put a name to it.

No, his brother Alejandro was the one with the large hands. 

He’d confused the two of them- it wasn’t all that easy to do, although they were twins: they’d never looked alike. 

The stale taste of wine curdled at the back of his throat as his gorge rose, choking him for a second. The leftovers of the feast, or the “Last Supper,” as he thought of it, which had marked Fabian’s reinstatement in the surgery where he worked. All he’d consumed was the wine. 

Truthfully, he didn’t remember much of the dinner, beyond his other brother Alejandro (Fabian’s twin) almost knocking him over in the hall with a stiff fist to his sternum, and his resultant gasp for breath. Even though Hector was almost sixteen, both his brothers dwarfed him still. He’d rubbed his chest, glaring resentfully as the twins had embraced. Beyond that, he didn’t remember much beyond glass after glass of red wine, which he’d sipped while trying to behave as though he was listening.  
Fabian had twisted his thin hands together on the table, though his face looked pleasant enough- 

No. No. It wasn't Fabian who had the strong hands, it was Alejandro, with his broad shoulders and nasty laugh. Or maybe it had been his dad.

Wait. He ran the memory back in his mind. That didn't make sense. His dad had been about as hands-off as possible- he thought the old man would spit on him sometimes, what with the way he looked at him. Old man thought he was some kind of pervert. Most of the time, though, he preferred to think of himself as someone with a healthy sexual appetite.

So what if that appetite tended to lean toward men as well as women? He went for whoever was prettiest, that didn't make him a pervert. Sure, he’d sucked Matthew O'Connell's dick in the boys’ washroom, but Matthew had a nice dick, and a nice face.  
It hadn't looked so nice when he brought his pissy little friends around to beat him to a pulp for being a “dirty queer,” but that was one time, and he’d learned. Learned to puff himself up, to make a show of bravado, so they wouldn't think he was one of those guys, a poof, a nancy.  
But the hands he was thinking of didn’t belong to Matthew, or his friends, or his brothers. Maybe they did belong to one of his brothers, though? They had certainly been big enough to be Alejandro’s. 

A spot high on one cheekbone formed a red, aching knot of pain, while he could barely open one eye: it was swelling. His mind held the image of rough hands, a punch directed toward his face, another hand tugging his slightly-too-long hair. His scalp burned.

 

Hector had thrown his words back in his dad’s teeth, drunk and so angry, angry, angry. He’d only complimented the waiter’s eyes. That wasn't something his dad needed to “deal with.” 

"Son- what did you say?" His father's eyebrows had furrowed gravely. To the onlooker, they might have merely looked stern, but to Hector, they held a different meaning. I'm going to give you one chance to take that back, was what they meant.

"Yeah, his eyes are pretty, Papi. Problem with that?" He'd been buzzed, angry, on the edge of his seat. It was stupid, he realized now. What a stupid thing to stand by, while his brother was being congratulated for ending a girl's life. Then, he'd always chosen the wrong cause to back. 

That’s what he’d called it, “dealing with the problem,” the words muttered as he’d risen from his seat, and his mother’s eyes had filled with alarm, and to Hector’s unease, tears. 

“No, you don’t need to-” 

“I should have dealt with him- the problem- before. Luisa, you stay put, enjoy the evening.” 

Hector had noticed the strands of grey hair in his father’s black, carefully combed coiffure, and realized, with a shock, that his father was no longer young, he was old… and there were wrinkles filling the skin on his forehead like worn-down streambeds.  
His father’s hand had clamped down on his shoulder, pushing him out of the restaurant door.

“My own son… a disgrace. You should try and be like your brothers in there.”

“What?” Hector had laughed. “What, a bully and a murderer?” His voice had been ragged. “You know he killed that nurse, Papi. Or got Alejandro to do it for him!” 

“I will not hear such words. This is your last chance, Hector. If I see you looking at another man in that way, I swear, you will never again have the chance. I will disown you without even a penny to your name, if you keep up perversion.” 

He’d stared up at his father. The imprint of a rosary was visible through his shirt pocket, the contrast of his black coat against the white shirt creating a chiaroscuro effect, as though he rose out of the darkness like a vengeful ghost. 

“You think I’m a pervert? Because I like guys? You know I’ve done more than just look, right. Yeah. That’s right, old man, your son’s a fucking pervert!”  
His father’s startled dark eyes were fixed on him, and it had felt good. For once in his life, he had his father’s undivided attention.  
“I’ve gone down on guys before, Papi, and guess what? I’m good at it too! Your son’s a pervert, what do you think of that? I’d sooner be a pervert than a goddamn murderous bastard or a conniving accomplice!” 

He’d screamed the words into his father’s face, and then… 

He couldn't remember what his father’s hands looked like, anyway. 

Hector had almost gone home. It would have been the prudent thing to do- he didn’t even have any extra clothes with him. All he had was twenty dollars, his mother’s Saint Sebastian medal, his copy of Shakespeare, and the clothes he wore. He reached into his pockets, and found his pocketknife, some chewed gum, and a piece of string. At the time, though, it had seemed the best thing to do. He still had his savings in the bank- if pressed, he could survive on those funds for a month or so.  
Plus, the twenty dollars covered the train to New York. The thought of his name in lights fueled him through buying the ticket and finding a seat, but it left him as the train doors closed. 

His stomach tugged at itself with hunger as the train drew away from the station, but he had no money for food. Despite its emptiness, he felt his gut turn at the smell of metal emitting from the man who’d taken the seat ahead of him. If tonight had been The Last Supper, he was Judas Iscariot, selling out family for a ride to the top. The thing was, selling out had to be better than being there, where his dad slapped his brother on the back for killing a woman and getting away with it. 

Hector pressed himself against the side of the train car, and tried not to look as young or as sick as he felt. He wanted someone to notice, to ask if he was all right. But no one did, and he shrank into himself as the train surged on into the night, as his swollen right eye pulsed with the rhythm of his heart. 

He wished his mother was there, to wipe the wounds with a clean cloth, to sing to him, the way she had when he’d fall down as a child. Sometimes, he’d fallen down on purpose, so that she would wrap her arms around him, sing to him, to quiet his sobs. It had made him feel, almost, as though he was loved.

But he wasn’t a child now. He wasn’t a man, either, but he still wanted his mother, so what did that make him?  
His hand hurt. He opened it, to find the pieces of a broken rosary, snapped at the neck. The corners of the crucifix were cutting into his hand.  
Holding the little crucifix close, he absently looked to see if this Jesus figure had any kind of a dick.  
He didn’t.  
In the back of his throat, Hector chuckled. If he hadn't been going to hell before, he certainly was now.  
With the piece of string from his pocket, he mended the rosary, and put it around his neck, carefully not wondering how it had come to rest in his hand.


End file.
